


Please Take My Hand, We're In Foreign Land (Together We Go)

by QueenieRose53001



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Alderaan, BAMF Leia Organa, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Han pretends he doesn't care about Leia but he really does, Hockey, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-18 03:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13091106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenieRose53001/pseuds/QueenieRose53001
Summary: To boost morale, Han Solo starts a hockey league on Hoth.Leia hates that she's going to play against him.





	Please Take My Hand, We're In Foreign Land (Together We Go)

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoyed writing this. I incorporated my two favorite loves, hockey and Star Wars, into something I'd like to consider a good piece of writing.  
> Written for @alderaanallday on tumblr

Leia hated to admit it, but Han Solo was a genius. 

They had been stationed on Hoth for two miserable years, hiding out from the Imperial forces, and morale was at an all time low. Leia herself was starting to feel the effects of it as well. As more soldiers and pilots deserted, and the cold settled into everyone’s bones, Leia sifted through all of her paperwork with less and less enthusiasm. 

Seeing this, the smuggler had decided, in his words, that he was “going to put an end to all this kriffin’ moping.” 

Leia didn’t see him around the base often, as he was never in the hangars when she was there, but word among the pilots spread fast, and soon Luke was telling her that Wedge told Hobbie told Wes told him that there was going to be an recreational hockey league, and anyone who wanted to play could join. 

Leia had some questions. How many people on the base actually knew how to play hockey or some local form of the sport? Where were they going to get sticks? Skates? Pucks? Goals? How were they going to make a rink? Yes, Hoth was cold as all hell, but with the constant snow and wind, there was no efficient way to keep a patch of ice clear. 

But despite all of her doubts, it sounded like a good distraction. And then she thought about it. She knew how to play hockey, years of visiting her father’s family in the mountains had taught her well. And then she realized. The sport was always going to remind her of home, of family, and that train of thought never went to good places. 

That didn’t stop her from wandering outside of base one sunny afternoon to find where they were playing. She heard them long before she saw them, laughter and the crack of sticks against a puck. The cold air turned the tips of her nose and fingers pink, but the chill hadn’t grown unwelcome yet. 

There were only ten of them on their little rink. Dressed in pilot’s jumpsuits and officer’s uniforms, with the standard coats over top, X-Wing helmets instead of actual hockey helmets. They had real Corellian hockey sticks, and she couldn’t see their skates, but Leia could bet that they had strapped blades onto their military issue snow boots. They were all laughing, and it looked like they were having actual fun. 

They didn’t notice her as she approached them. She recognized several of the players. Wedge Antilles was in one of the makeshift goals, marked with old crates, Hobbie in the other one. There was someone standing on the side, bundled up in their coat, scarf wrapped around their face and hands jammed in their pockets. They saw Leia first, and waved. She smiled at the figure and walked around the makeshift rink to the figure. 

They tore the scarf from around their face, revealing the bright smile on Luke Skywalker’s face. “Leia! You came!”  Leia smiled back. She liked this boy, but not in the way that the betting pool in the lower ranks of the Rebellion suggested. 

“I did. I wanted to check this out, see if it was worth joining in.” She crossed her arms, and turned to watch the game. It looked to be closer to the more formal Alderaanian sport, even though most of the players that she recognized were from Corellia and its neighboring planets. 

“Do you know how to play? Wedge told me that, um,” Luke hesitated bringing up the topic but continued, “Alderaanians developed the sport.” This boy was so sweet and considerate to everyone around him. Leia had realized that in the moment that they had met, in that cell on the Death Star. 

“I do know how to play.”

The players stopped at the sound of a whistle, gathering in the center of the rink to discuss something briefly before they all headed towards the edges of the rink to remove their skates and gear. One of them skated at full speed towards Leia and Luke, leaning to the side to stop. He sprayed snow all over the two of them, reaching up with a gloved hand and yanking off the X Wing helmet he was wearing. 

It was Han. He shook out his hair and handed the helmet to Luke. “Thanks, kid, for letting me use your helmet. Guess I’m not as bigheaded as I thought, because it fits like a glove.”

“No problem, Han,” Luke chimed. 

Han finally brought his attention to Leia. “You come out to watch, Princess?” 

Leia scowled. Looking up at him without tilting her head up made her eyes hurt, but she didn’t want to. Her relationship with this man consisted of her not bending to his level. She was a military leader, he was a smuggler. “I did. I also had some interest in playing.”

Han raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really?”

Leia stood her ground. The wind was beginning to pick up, blowing snow onto the makeshift rink. “I know how to play. I wanted to have something to do other than work.”

He shrugged, the smirk plastered on his face. “We’re going to meet up to play again in two days.”

“I’ll be there,” Leia said, “But first, we should get inside before Farm Boy here freezes to death.”

Luke opened his mouth to start complaining but stopped when he realized Leia was right. The two turned and started wading through the snow to get back inside. Han followed, trying to catch up. 

“We’ve got the skates and the sticks, all you need to bring is a helmet, sweetheart!” Han called out to Leia. He couldn’t see her roll her eyes at him. 

“I’ll be there,” Leia assured him. She took Luke by the arm and dragged him inside, leaving Han out alone in the snow. 

Han wouldn’t admit it, but he lied to Wedge when he told the pilot that he wanted to start the hockey league to relive the street games he played in his childhood. The atmosphere on base had been miserable, and Han was beginning to suffer for it. 

He didn’t know a lot about Leia, even after spending two years with her on this frozen hell of a planet. But whenever he saw her, she was so miserable. Even though they hated each other, he hated seeing her like that.

So he asked around for ideas to lighten the atmosphere. Preferably Alderaanian in origin, as to make Leia feel more at peace, or more at home, or whatever. But when he learned that the Alderaanians valued philosophy and the arts more than everything, he almost lost hope.

But when talking to Wedge Antilles, he learned that his favorite childhood sport had originated from the mountain villages of Alderaan, and migrated to Corellia. And the snowy environment of Hoth proved itself an entire planet’s worth of hockey rinks. 

_ Now _ , he thought, shaking the snow out of his hood,  _ to make sure that every player follows the rules when the princess plays _ .  

The days passed uneventfully before the hockey players met again. Leia marched out with them, her puffy white coat contrasting against her dark hair, not tied up intricately as it usually was, but simply in a knot at the base of her neck. Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing helmet was tucked under her arm, the bright orange and the white hurting her own eyes. 

The players were intimidated by her, even with her small physical presence. But she was the princess, their unofficial leader. Of course they would be intimidated by her.

Han handed Leia a pair of strap on blades and a hockey stick. It was very crudely shaped down to suit her height, but taped and waxed with care. She tossed it between her hands casually, testing the weight and the balance. It was a little off, and the makeshift knob was too soft, as it was made out of tape, but it would do. She slipped the blades onto her feet, tying the laces tighter than she thought she needed to.

The other players waited with bated breath as Leia stepped onto the ice. Although out of practice, she slipped into skating with an elegance Han would associate with royalty. Han tore his eyes away from her and gathered the other skaters. 

“While we’re playing today, make sure to follow the rules. No rough housing, or fighting. All penalties are going to lead to two minute majors.” There were groans at this. Han raised his hands in defense. “Hey, we have the Princess playing with us. No complaining.” They shrugged in agreement. They weren’t ready to face her wrath, but they all piled onto the ice nonetheless. 

“What position you playing, Highness?” Han called out. Wedge and Hobbie skated to each end of the ice, settling in their makeshift goals. Their equipment, more than any other player, was makeshift, extra layers of bright orange fabric under their coats. The flight suits were made to withstand blasts from shrapnel and the g-forces of flight. The leg pads were made from pillows reinforced by a sheet of durasteel, and the same for their blockers. The catcher was simply a flight glove, but with a leather webbing extending from the fingers. 

“I want to play center.” Leia was confident, skating up to the center of the ice. “I don’t know how you’ve divided up teams, but I am willing to be on any team configuration you want.’

Han rolled his eyes at her formality, but didn’t make his expected sarcastic comment. They arranged themselves to form the faceoff. Wes Janson was the ref, gliding to the center ice. They all took turns refereeing, and while it wasn’t the most fun, it was necessary, and Wes had drawn the short end of the stick. 

Han found himself playing center, opposite Leia. He wrote off his face growing red to the blustery wind. He leaned in, pressing the blade of his stick to the ice, waiting for Wes to drop the puck. Leia pulled Luke’s helmet over her head. Surprisingly, it fit perfectly. 

Han had taken some other pilot’s helmet, and he pulled the visor down, letting him see through it but allowing it to protect his face. 

Kriff, he loved hockey, almost as much as flying. He wouldn’t tell anyone, but the scar below his mouth was from playing street hockey with an iceball as a puck. The sharp edges had caught his chin, and there had been so much blood. 

Leia was ready. All of a sudden she was playing with her cousins, the children of her father’s sister, on the lake by their village. The memory wasn’t accompanied by the bittersweet wave of it’s-gone-it’s-all-gone-and-never-coming-back, Leia realized. She crouched into the starting stance, waiting. 

Wes dropped the puck, and Leia snapped it to the pilot playing right wing. Han blinked. He was completely blindsided by her speed at the faceoff, and he skated backwards ahead of her, preventing the pilot from passing back to Leia. 

But as the puck hit Han’s stick, a force slammed into his ribs. Han hit the ice, the layers of clothing keeping the wind from being knocked out from him, but he laid there in surprise. A whistle blew. 

“Princess, cross checking. Two minutes.”

Han blinked. Leia had cross-checked him? Less than a minute into play?  _ Leia? _ Han got to his feet. “You good, Han?” Wedge asked, muffled by his helmet. 

“I’m great, pal,” Han said, skating to the right side for another puck drop. 

The hour they had set aside to play passed quickly. Leia could count all of her penalties on both her hands. One count of cross checking, two of high sticking. Four counts of slashing, and two of holding. 

Han, on the other hand, was embarrassed with his clean slate. Not a single penalty on his count, unlike his preferred game and playing style. He prided himself on being a dirty player, an active fighter and offensive player. On Corellia, they called people who played like him a goon. A goal and two assists were on his record, however. Not bad for somebody out of practice.

But despite all twenty of her penalty minutes, Leia was still the highest scorer on the ice. Two goals, two assists. Leia’s team won. Han skated up to her, as she took off Luke’s helmet, shaking out her hair. 

“What was that?” He asked. Kriff. He didn’t mean to be so blunt. Leia shrugged, her face flushed and sweaty, but she was grinning.

“All of a sudden I was playing with my cousins,” Leia said, and Han noticed her eyes were glistening in the setting sun. It got dark early this season. “We didn’t have refs, and anything went as long as no one got hurt. I got carried away, I apologize.”

Han shook his head, raising his hands to not look so defensive. “I wasn’t asking for an apology, Princess,” he said, sitting down next to her to remove the blades. “I just assumed, given your status and your planet’s philosophies, you’d be all rule abiding.”

Leia laughed. Not a chuckle, but a full out laugh. Han blushed, again, only from the cold, he swore. He suddenly wished he could hear it forever. She turned back to him, a fire-like smile in her eyes that he had only seen once before, on Yavin 4, that blasted medal ceremony. “Han. You really think I would be rule abiding when I was playing hockey?”

He nodded, like some poor fool. 

“You’ve known me for two years, Han, and the first time we met I ripped a blaster out of your hands and jumped into a garbage pit.” She devolved into another fit of laughter. She stood, and Han followed. The other players had already started heading inside, tiny in perspective of the giant plains of snow and ice. 

Leia pulled her hood over her loose hair. Han had never seen her with her hair down, she realized. She had never seen him this at peace. No conflict, just fooling around and having harmless fun with the pilots. He was relaxed. 

“Han,” she said, still smiling, “I got kicked out of boarding school when I was seven. Do you really think I would play by the rules?”

He smiled at this. Suddenly the sunlight bouncing off the snow seemed too bright, and he was following Leia towards the base. “I don’t know why I thought that, Leia.”

She froze. Turning around, Han startled when he saw the tears that were leaking down her face. Something tiny snapped and splintered in his chest, even though nothing actually was hurt. 

“You have never called me Leia before,” She said, the tears leaving tiny trails of frost down her skin. Han took three long strides to her, wanting to reach out and hold her, instinct he would have denied if someone had asked. 

“Are you okay, Leia?” He knew the answer to the question before she shook her head. He opened his arms, and she hugged him, and kriff she was so tiny, and she shivered in his arms. 

“I want to go home,” She whispered into his chest. 

“Me too,” Han admitted. Leia raised her head to look up at him. He guided her so they were sitting down, the drifts of snow blocking most of the wind. As night grew closer, the temperature dropped farther and farther. 

“I thought you were running from your past,” Leia sniffed. “Why would you want to go home?”

Han chuckled. “It wasn’t all bad,” He said, looking down at her with the kindest expression she had ever seen on his face. “I used to play street hockey. I was the goon.”

Leia smiled. She was still sad though. “I don’t know why that surprises me.” She took a breath before continuing. “My mother had a cousin who lived in the mountains. He was like a brother to her. His family, the Antilles, was noble, but they were closer to the people than my father’s family ever was.”

Han raised an eyebrow and gestured towards the base, where Wedge was taking off all of his gear, out of earshot. “Antilles, huh? No relation to Red Five?” 

It was meant to be a joke, and Leia smiled, even as she was in obvious pain. “No relation to Wedge. But in the winters, my cousins taught me how to play. They stayed on the planet when I went to Coruscant to serve in the Senate. I don’t know if any of them are alive.”

There was silence. Leia swallowed hard, and Han winced. 

“I can’t say I know what you’ve been going through, Leia,” Han said, his voice low, almost completely vibrating from his chest. “I don’t know what that’s like. I just know how I felt when I lost my parents, and I was the only one on my side. But Leia, you have so many people looking out for you. You’ve got Luke, Wedge, Hobbie, Wes, and Chewie, and me, I guess.”

Leia blinked. Han said that he never looked out for people other than himself and Chewie. “I lost my parents twice, Han. By birth I am nothing more than a daughter of war casualties. My parents, my real parents, never told me their names, even though my father told me that my birth mother was a good friend of his, and I reminded him of her. And now I am royalty of a planet that no longer exists. My entire family is gone, my cousins and their house on the lake, my aunts and uncles, my mother and father. I don’t know how to grieve this, Han.”

Han let her words sink in. She was twenty one standard years old, an orphan twice over, an unofficial leader of the Rebellion. She took her hardships in stride, making sure that everyone else was alright before taking care of herself. He hated to love her, but he really did love her, even as he hated her stubbornness and pride. 

The sky was stained shades of yellow and peach, and Leia wished she could stay here forever, even though she insisted that she hated Han Solo, his stupid smug smile and his stupid cocky attitude. 

“Let’s get inside so we don’t freeze, okay?” Han helped Leia to her feet, clutching her cold hand in his.

Leia could grow to not hate him. She could be friends with this man. She caught herself thinking about falling for him. That didn’t matter. For now, the only thing that mattered was surviving the cold winter of Hoth. 

**Author's Note:**

> My mom caught me writing this and gave me shit about "rewriting star wars" and I just go internally hey at least my take on these characters is more in-character than The Last Jedi....
> 
> @alderaanallday I really hope you like this, because I loved working on it.


End file.
